Displaced
by Fading Grace
Summary: Gray's struggle to find his true place in life. Where can he belong, if not with Mary? Complete.
1. Prologue

Have you ever felt misplaced? Like you don't belong?

I do, all the time. I'm worse than a puzzle without a piece; I'm the piece to a missing puzzle.

Why am I so unlike everyone else? Grandpa Saibara says he knew I was a lunatic the day I was born - but that's not what I mean. For a long time, I though it was because I was just getting used to living in a slow, small town far outside the city in which I was born and bred...

Turns out that's not it, either.

At my age, kids should be searching high and low for a wife/husband (whichever is preferred). I pursued a girl only once, for a short time, and gave her up.

I shared a large room at the Inn with another bachelor, Cliff, and Kai during the summers. I worked in Grandpa's smithy, learning how to listen to what the metals say.

I had friends, of course: Jack, the farmer; Grandpa (if he counts); Ann, the daughter of the Inn's owner; Doug, the Inn's owner himself; Cliff, a transient, absentminded guy that worked at the winery; Kai, who ran his own beachside restaurant; Rick, who helped his mother run the poultry farm; and the resident nature specialist's daughter that ran the Library, Mary.

Mary. Oh, that name brings back memories…

Hair, thick, black, and silky, wound into a braid that fell forward over her left shoulder. Too-big glasses over brown eyes that made her every expression seem timid and shy. A blue knit vest, given her by old Mrs. Ellen next door, over a short-sleeved, white, button-up shirt. A knee-length blue and green plaid skirt. White, knee-high socks and black buckle shoes, polished to a shine. Pale skin, predisposed to blushing. Pink lips, sharp mind, confidence when pushed…

Mary was a masterpiece in ice, carefully carved to be like glass. But, unlike glass, ice will melt if you get too close.

I loved her once. Oh, how I did love her…

Everyone had their match, their soul mate with whom they could grow old. Cliff had Ann; Kai had Popuri, Rick's spoilt younger sister; Doctor had Elli, they both worked in the Clinic together; Rick had Karen, the daughter of the man that owned the General Store. And I had Mary. Everyone else was either married or six, and the boy and girl of the town were obviously also meant to be. Everyone had their place in the tapestry that is life in Mineral Town.

And then Jack came and inherited the farm. That one thing threw everything off.

He was kind to a fault, conscientious, hard-working, minded his own if you did yours. He mostly dealt with the poultry farm, the dairy farm, and the general store. He enlisted Grandpa's help when he wanted to boost his tools' durability and efficiency. Still, we were friends.

So, now that you're somewhat caught up, what say you to beginning our tale?

Very well.

I am Gray.


	2. A Day of Beginnings

I opened my eyes.

It was dark.

I blinked, but the darkness was persistent.

Yawning and rubbing away the sleep, I sat up and looked blearily around the room. There was the vague outline of Cliff in the blankets of the other bed in the room, and the table. Against the wall next to the door was a dresser, and I padded across to it, feeling above my head. Finding a chain, I tugged at it, and light flooded the room. Cliff groaned and tossed a pillow at me with amazing accuracy.

In a tired croak, I said, "You have to be at the Winery in an hour and a half."

He opened one brown eye, attempted to kill me with a glare alone, then turned away. "I can get ready in less time than that."

I shook my head to clear some of the cobwebs of the night, and reached into the dresser for some clothes. Since I slept in loose flannel pants alone, a shirt would be a good start. "Do we have to have this same conversation every morning?"

I could hear the smirk in his voice as he said, "You know, I think we do. Why do I have to get up this early?"

I frowned, both at him and the dresser. I kept my shirts in the third drawer, and always had. They had apparently decided to sew each other into pants overnight. I reached farther into the drawer to find them as I answered, "So that you can ask Ann very nicely to please get you some breakfast, then casually talk to her all the time she takes to _make_ said breakfast, then gallantly volunteer your services as dishwasher. And _then_ ruin everything by being a klutz and dropping the plates the instant she tries to hand them to you. So, you'll have about half an hour to get ready."

I took my hand out and stared daggers at my stubbornly un-shirt-like pants. "Where the he-"

"Your shirts are in the third drawer, not the second," Cliff supplied prematurely, sitting up and reaching toward his own dresser. "You always do that."

I pulled open the drawer below, and, lo and behold, there were my customary yellow shirts. I shrugged one on, stripped the flannel pajamas from my legs, and pulled on beige pants from the assaulted second drawer. A red tie was, after a short inquiry, discovered to have taken up residence on a picture frame. I picked my beige jacket up from the back of a chair, running my hands through blonde hair and then settling my blue-and-yellow baseball cap low over my forehead.

Who cared if I could only see out one eye? I looked _good_, baby.

I opened the door, turned back to my roommate and said, by way of farewell, "You look like a raccoon."

He waved from across the room without turning around and replied, "Love you too, Gray."

I snorted, walked down the hall, poked my head into Ann's room to say hello and goodbye, walked down the stairs, out the door, down the street and into Rose Square. This was how every morning went. As I inhaled the spring air that still tasted of snow, I finally opened my eyes and let out one laugh. The emptiness of the square and cold, still air let it carry a long while, exaggerating it and making a clump of soggy, half-melted snow fall from the top of a lamppost. I followed it with my eyes.

It landed directly on top of a guy in blue overalls, an off-white shirt, and a backwards blue cap. As he sputtered and worked to wipe the muck off his hat, I rushed forward to help. When it was determined that the hat had suffered only a fading watermark, he smiled up at me from a fair four inches below and said, "Thanks, stranger. Where are we? Care to hazard a guess?"

I looked around. Now, I had only been staying in the town for a little while, but even I knew where we were. "Rose Square." As he pulled out a map that would be impossible to fold up later, I watched in amusement. "You must be that guy that Mayor Harris was talking about. You took over the farm just down the road from Saibara's Blacksmith, right?" I held out my hand. "I'm Gray. Saibara's my grandpa."

A slow but genuine smile spread from ear to ear, and my hand was shaken vigorously. "I'm Jack. Nice to meet you." He looked down at the map, looked embarrassed, and added, "Sorry, I'm lost. Where's the General Store from here?"

I said, "Up that way to the Church, take a left, then go until you pass the Clinic," automatically. A look of pure relief washed over his face, and I was a little glad for the discipline with which I tried to keep my face from being an open book. "Say hello to Karen for me."

He nodded tiredly, and went in the direction I had pointed out. "Thanks…Gray, right?"

"See? You're learning things already." I watched him go, then checked my watch.

It was nine thirty. I was due in the smith by nine forty, and it would take me twenty minutes just to walk there. Look on the bright side: I had made a new friend, and at least we didn't open till ten. I had time enough to get there…

* * *

"I apologize, Grandpa! I was distracted on my way here." I was kneeling in a pose of remorse behind the counter, occasionally throwing a handful of coal into the furnace whenever Grandpa's cane thudded on the ground. An hour I had spent like this, can you imagine? No orders had come in, even, and still I had to tend the furnace. 

"And what could have been so important, Gray?" he asked at length.

"I met the farmer down from the road. He was lost, and I helped him. Is that such a horrible thing?" The cane came down, and I reached in the bucket of coal to throw more into the flame. I was beginning to notice a correlation between the amount of coal and the time between the feeding.

He seemed to consider it, then grunted vaguely and motioned for me to take to my feet. At the same time, the door opened. I was busy dusting myself off, and didn't look up until an angel's song seemed to form the words, "Mr. Saibara, do you have the ink elements I requested yesterday?"

Grandpa answered with a half-smile, "Of course, Mary. I'll just have the errand-boy go and fetch it, he'll only be a moment." He turned to me, poked my shoulder with his time-keeping cane - reminding me to close my mouth - and barked, "Go get that case of iron and zinc powder for the lady, boy."

Reluctantly, I turned away and grabbed the box that Grandpa had badgered me into making the day before. I looked back to see Mary's large black glasses - somewhere, presumably, there were brown eyes under them - staring at me apprehensively. "Thank you, um …Errand...Boy?"

I ignored Grandpa's sniggering and worked past my choked throat to say, "Don't listen to Grandpa. I'm Gray. And you're Mary, right?"

She nodded quickly

"You're the daughter of that naturalist, Basil, right?"

Another nod.

"Don't you run the Library?"

She nodded yet again.

"Is this ink for the books, or something?"

Now her eyes lit up. "Actually, it's for my writing. I'm working on a novel."

"Really? That's amazing! What's it about?"

She blushed and looked at her hands, which were fiddling with her skirt. In her beautiful voice, she said, "Oh, you know…it's neither here nor there…not interesting, I swear…"

"I've never known anyone with talent like that."

Grandpa cleared his throat with an admonishing glare, grumbling, "The furnace needs its coal, Gray. Get a move on." In a kinder voice, he said, "Mary, that's one hundred gold. I hope you'll drop by for a visit soon enough."

I rolled my eyes at him, and looked at the back of Mary's head. She had turned to looked at Grandpa when he spoke. I cleared my throat to get her to turn back - wasn't it scary how similar I was to Grandpa? Maybe I would end up a grouchy old curmudgeon like him, scary thought though it was - and said with a small smile, "Mary, I would love to look around the Library sometime. Can I come by?"

She nodded so quickly that her glasses slipped off her nose. I saw it coming, caught them, and slipped them back on her. She had a deep blush plastered across both cheeks. "Thank you! And yes, of course you can come. I never have any visitors as it is, I would love to see you more often." Her eyes grew the size of dinner plates at what she was saying. "I mean…get to know you better. I mean, show you some of the books I have."

My smile widened. "I'd love to get to know you better, too."

If anything, her blush was worse. I was worried that it would be deadly if left unchecked. She quickly gave the money owed to Grandpa, flashed me a furtive smile, and hurried out of the smith once more.

I watched her go and raised my hand half-heartedly in farewell. Staring absently at the last place her face had been seen, I began to daydream about what we would talk about, if ever I could pluck up the nerve to talk to her again.

Grandpa cleared his throat.

Maybe I could ask more about her novel. Who writes a novel? It absolutely stunned me to know someone like that.

Grandpa tapped his cane on the ground impatiently.

Maybe she would be interested in hearing about metals and what they told me. No, no, she wouldn't be interested in that. No one ever was.

Grandpa threw a small hammer at me, hitting me square in the forehead and wrenching me painfully from my thoughts. "OW! Grandpa! What have I said about violence in this house?"

"Shut it, boy. The furnace needs its coal."

I grumbled as I grabbed some of the heavy rocks and tossed them on the contained flame.

"So," he said thoughtfully, "Are you going to court this girl?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

"She's _very_ nice, you know."

"I got that."

"You should ask her about it when you go to that Library of hers today."

I smiled widely and asked in the sweetest voice I possessed, "Which reminds me, Grandpa, may I-"

"At two in the afternoon, Grey, and not before. I don't care what you do with your time, but you _will_ spend a good six hours learning your craft. I'll not have this smith pass into incompetent hands."

I gritted my teeth and bit back a sharp retort. I was good at what he told me to do. I _knew_ I did everything right. Whatever he gave me, even if he thought it was supposed to be a challenge, was simple.

It worried me, how easily I could mold the metals into any shape I felt like. Sometimes I could see in Grandpa's eyes that I shouldn't have been able to do half the things he asked of me.

I viciously picked up another lump of coal and threw it on the fire. I needed to calm down.

Grandpa tossed me a shaped and tamed block of mithril. I gripped it tightly in my fist and said slowly, "Why did you give me this, then, Grandpa?"

"I want to test something." We stared at each other in silence for a moment. "Let me see that mithril again." I set it on his counter belligerently. He examined it, and looked back up at me sharply. "You did this just now." It wasn't a question.

The block was twisted and formed as though crushed under fingers. There was even a thumbprint. Grandpa took a ladleful of water from the bucket we kept in the smith, and poured it over the warped mithril.

It spat as though just come from the forge.

Slowly, hesitantly, I reached out and touched it. He leaned forward quickly to stop me, but I picked it up and balled my hand into a fist around it. It fit there perfectly.

I had done this just now. I looked up at him in growing horror.

He looked from my stunned face to the metal in my hand - still sizzling from the water - and shook his head. "My boy, I knew you were a lunatic from the day your were born."


	3. The Gospel of Suraia

Well, the good news was, things were going well with Mary.

The _bad_ news was, I still had no idea what had happened in the smith that day, almost an entire season before.

I had decided to ignore it; if something like the trick with the mithril happened again, perhaps by then I would have a better clue about what was causing it. Barring Grandpa bringing it up in a thoughtful voice, it was out of sight, out of mind.

It was the second day of summer, and love was definitely in the air. Rick and Karen were going to even more parties than usual, Kai was back and falling for Popuri hard, Cliff was playing the downtrodden card for all it was worth with Ann, and Doctor seemed completely oblivious to Elli's feelings.

I had gotten to be close friends with Mary, and she had even hinted that I might get to read her novel one of these days. I went to the Library every day after work, except Mondays - it was 'family time' with Mary's folks - and she showed me a great deal of things.

She was more comfortable talking to me than I was with her, let me tell you.

So, I came down the stairs of the Library from my search for any more books on minerals or metals to ask about them. Who should I see in front of the desk, handing a pretty blossom to my Mary, but Jack?

I had become better friends with him as well, and I didn't hesitate to say calmly, "Hey, farmer boy."

He turned to look at me, surprised, and then scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. I could see Mary filling a vase with water and setting the flower up in plain view behind him. Jack laughed, "Heya back, metal kid." We smiled in good humor across the room.

I moved toward Mary's desk and leaned against it, holding only one slim book. "Mary, may I borrow this? For reading in the Inn, I mean. And do you have any others on metals?"

She became all business. "I might, somewhere. How about you take that for now and I'll look around?"

"No, I'll help you. Where do you keep books if they're not on the shelves?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment, and said, "In the attic of my parents house, usually. Here, come on over. Are you coming too, Jack?"

He hesitated, glancing from me to her - then nodded. "If that's alright with you, Gray." He stood just beside Mary as she came out from behind her counter and touched her shoulder with his arm.

Their easy contact annoyed me. A lot.

But I smiled, all the same. "I don't see why not." We held an almost-glare - not exactly sure why we were glaring, but glaring anyway because the other was, too - for a moment.

"Come with me, you two…" Mary stuttered, leading both Jack and me out the door and down the street (maybe a whole ten feet) to her house.

* * *

I shoved the dusty stack of papers to the right, choking on it absentmindedly. There, under the abstract ink arbitrarily scrawled across thick parchment, was a tome of sorts. Blowing the layers of grime from the cover (and using my fingers to actually pry the more solidified bits from the depressed letters of the title), I read aloud, "The Gospel According to Suraia." 

Mary heard me and made her way over, stumbling twice. "What's that? I've never seen it before."

I hefted it, testing its weight, and handed it to her. She almost overbalanced, but caught herself against stacked boxes and plopped down, somehow adding a measure of unconscious grace to the movement.

Ah, she was so _cute_ with her glasses slightly skewed and a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She looked almost…approachable.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by Jack materializing at her shoulder and reading from the open page, " 'And I walked among the blossoms and here spoke them of the bounty they heralded, and I knew too much more than ever I had previously. To touch a thing of life was to see its birth and subsequent death, and, panicked at these revelations, I fled from the perfect moment and hid myself deep in the earth, to escape the whispers of the incomprehensible that emanated from the growing lives. But beneath the earth could I not escape the tide, and, alone among many, I saw one person who would know what I faced and would understand. But He had not yet walked His path, and so I resolved to await His coming before fully accepting or rejecting this overpowering gift.' "

I saw that the page was near the end.

Mary peered at the words nearsightedly and looked up a Jack with an odd expression. "I've never read this."

"Oh, horror of horrors," he smiled.

"No, really, I've read every page in town. I've searched through the attic before, and never found it. I don't think it was here before." She looked at me curiously. "How did you manage to find it? An enigma…"

My eyes hadn't left the book, and I wasn't really sure why. There was…a feeling. A rightness.

Hmm.

Mary's pale, petite hand waved in front of me, and she repeated, "I don't think we're going to find any more of your books on metals. Should we call it a day?" She handed the Gospel back to me to put away, and waited for Jack to start down the steep ladder leading back to the house proper.

I sat holding the heavy book, fingers tracing the title. Turning, I asked Mary, "Can I borrow this? I mean, to read?"

She turned around, surprised, and said with a not-so-innocent smile, "If you can get it down from here…be my guest."

After much laughter and expenditure of upper body strength, I finally got the Gospel to my room in the Inn.

And I began to read.

* * *

One week of sleepless nights later, I pushed open the wooden doors of the Church and stepped inside slowly. There was Carter, smiling benignly as though he knew the secret of life itself. I would have to compare answers sometime, from The Gospel According to Suraia. 

"May the Harvest Goddess bless you on this beautiful and plentiful day," he said, nodding his head in greeting.

I nodded jerkily and let the Gospel drop onto his sermon podium with a resounding slam. "Carter," I began, not feeling myself, "have you ever heard of Suraia?"

His brows knit together, and he said slowly, "I know only the teachings of the Harvest Goddess, son."

"Tell me the origin story."

"Excuse me?"

"The origin story. Every religion has one. How did the Harvest Goddess do a bunch of magical feats and create the world?"

He stared at me as though I was insane. "There is none. The Goddess is the deity only of the yield, and did not, as you say, 'create the world'."

"Oh."

"I'm afraid so."

"That odd, though, isn't it? How did the Goddess come into being?"

"She does not condescend to divulge Her beginnings."

"Oh."

"Yes."

I looked around, at the empty pews and the sunlight streaming in through fragile stained glass windows. Turning back to Carter, I nodded resolutely and had to consciously make myself stop when I picked up speed. Sleep deprivation was starting to play tricks on my mind. "Well, anyway, must be going, places to see, Grandpa to be heckled by."

He watched me go, confusion and concern etched into his face like stone.

* * *

Grandpa had taken one look at me and sent me home to sleep. For some reason. 

So I lay in bed, mind racing. I still couldn't believe what had been written in that book. It was about a girl that was not ready for the burdens life had in store for her, and who grasped blindly for the hope that someone, sometime, would be able to help. And vague, random passages surfaced in my mind, without any effort to have memorized them.

For instance, the first passage was, 'I was, for the duration of my time as a natural-born woman, of a breed unique and separate from that of the norm. Never had I a niche to claim as my own. But, one day, as I cared for a seedling, it blossomed and bore its fruit and withered in death before I could drop it in surprise. And this was only the initial evidence of my strangeness.'

My mind wouldn't rest, and every detail of the Gospel floated around, meaningless so long as I couldn't think straight. I tried to fill my head with something else, and Mary appeared in my mind's eye.

"Gray…" she began, smiling cheerfully, "I'm glad to see you!"

Ah, that set me more at ease…

She continued, "It's so nice of you to visit Jack and me."

…but that didn't. I tried to change my train of thought again.

I wasn't aware of slipping into sleep, but I must have, because I was suddenly at Mother's Hill Spring, fully dressed and lucid. An ethereal mist hung in the air, and I peered into the water, wholly undisturbed and reflective.

A red flag flew up in my mind; a waterfall fed the Spring, and the surface was never clear like this.

An exquisite sound, akin to that produced by tracing a finger around the rim of a crystal glass, pushed the haze away, and there, in the center of the waterfall's basin, was the personification of elegance.

She was draped with a loose-fitting robe, light blue like the water her feet touched. Her hair - an unnatural blue, also, but what good are the details of a dream? - was braided and wrapped in buns at the sides of her head, the right one having even more braid hanging down to her shoulder. And that shoulder had such a gentle curve, up to her smooth neck, to her strong chin and flawless face painted with earthy tones and her eyes…

Oh, Goddess, her eyes…

They were blue, to say the least. More a sort of deep azure. But the emotion they held was unlike anything I had seen or felt. This woman had seen more than she ever should have had to.

It made me wonder how old she was, but I certainly wasn't going to ask. No telling what she would be able to do to me.

The crystalline sound changed, and the words _You are wondering who I am_ appeared in my mind.

I nodded dumbly in response.

The woman raised a sculpted eyebrow. _I am one that you should know._

"Wha-" I started, and had a thought. "Suraia?"

The eyebrow dropped and she looked stern, her lips not moving. _It has been a very long time since I heard that name._

A tingling ran up my spine as the taste of the words gave me a sense of just how long a time it had been. "Then who are you?"

The mortals call me a goddess.

"The Harvest Goddess." I stood staring at her. Remembering myself, I landed on my knees and bowed low. "My lady!"

She came forward to stand only feet away, apparently unconcerned with such frivolous things as the laws of gravity and buoyancy of objects in water. _Don't mock me with your misplaced humility. You do not believe in me._

From somewhere on the level of an exceedingly intriguing stick bug, I said, "He is a fool who doesn't believe what he sees."

No, not when he is dreaming. The teachings you follow, Gray, are of a different gospel. You follow that of the Suraia.

"The book? That wasn't some sort of holy scripture. It was fictional." I thought about some of the miraculous sorts of things she had done, and how real it had seemed to me. I amended, "I think."

I knew her. It is all true.

"Really?" I slowly stood up and looked around. "Um, what happened to her?"

'And here I wait until He shall come, forever and a day. Pass on my words to alert Him of my whereabouts, else these horrors have I endured in vain. This is my record, and it has kept my mind away from my consequences. This is my gospel, the gospel according to Suraia…'

" '…and it is to be continued upon His arrival,' " I finished the final verse.

She smiled, and it didn't reach her unfathomable eyes. _Good luck on you path._ She held up one thin hand in farewell, as though she didn't expect this to be the last time we would see each other.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything.

Suddenly the dense fog crashed back and I was blind.

I realized that my eyes were closed - and it was stupid to worry about being blind with my eyes closed.

I opened them and it was still dark. "Uh-oh," I groaned, rubbing my head and worrying more about being blind than before. But, no, it was only nighttime.

Something dangling from a chain on my neck bumped against my skin, and that hadn't been there before. Feeling it with my thumb, I found that a miniature silver hammer pendant had rearranged itself in the shape of - as far as I could tell - a human figure, still looped on the chain.

As I was wondering about it, there came a rustling of delicate cloth from over by the table, and a very female voice that had no place in Kai's, Cliff's, and my room in the middle of the night said, "Good morning, technically. And welcome to the first day of the rest of your life."


	4. All or Nothing

"Wh-who's there?" I sat up straight in my bed. Laughing lightly, the dark silhouette of a woman - definitely a woman because in profile you can tell, and I'll leave it at that - slipped off the table and walked silently over to me. "Get away!"

Kai sat up sleepily and looked around. "Gray? Wh't're you yellin' about?"

"Can't you see her?" I held my arms out, fingers _clearly_ pointing the intruder out to him.

He looked all around then flopped back onto the bed to sleep.

Nonplussed, I said, "Um…apparently not."

"You're kind of slow on the uptake, aren't you?" the aforesaid intruder asked, not disturbing my roommates in the least. She sat on the foot on my bed and, in a stage whisper, confided, "I'm in your head. They can't hear, see, or interact with me. Lucky me, huh?"

Very carefully, I got up, dressed in the dark, walked slowly downstairs, and out the door. When I was standing in the still, silent street, I took a steadying breath and turned around soon enough to see her standing at the top of the step.

She stepped down, but it was a little off - like she had forgotten to let gravity help for a moment. She was a little too graceful to be real.

Of course, she wasn't real. She was in my head. I had a niggling feeling that that should have been more important, but it wasn't. Not after the metal was bending backwards for me, and _certainly_ not after I'd had the dream about the Harvest Goddess. "Who are you?"

"I am one that you should know," her laughter echoed eerily, and she stayed out of the circle of the streetlamp's light. I still didn't know what she looked like.

"Are you the Harvest Goddess again?"

She made a _tsk-_ing sound and waggled her finger in mock austerity. "Close, but no burning tobacco stick. You got it right the first time you answered that question, love."

I slapped my hand tiredly over my eyes. "I don't believe this. Suraia?"

"Well, aren't we a clever one?" She bounced into the light so I could see her.

I must live a blessed life, to meet so many beautiful women.

Her hair was light, light blonde, and it was tied up in a loose bun high on her head. Her eyes were a clear, cool grey, framed by thin, spunky, silver-rimmed glasses that made her look smart.

They made _me_ feel that I had the basic mentality of a six-year-old and I was being scolded by a teacher.

A really pretty teacher.

And she was only half an inch shorter than me, while everyone else in town was at least two. She was wearing a silver-embroidered, dark green corset - _don't those go _under_ the clothes? -_ and a matching green skirt that fanned out and overlapped in too many layers to comprehend.

"Um…you really _are_ Suraia?" I felt myself swallow nervously.

She shrugged and smiled with so much energy it should have been illegal, this early in the morning. "Well, last time I checked, but I'm in your head, remember."

"So this is how I imagined Suraia to be?"

She beamed at me, congratulations on figuring it out. "Probably. Let's go with that for now, what say you to that?"

I started walking away, muttering, "Wait, no. You're not how I thought Suraia would be. She would be more…depressed, I suppose. All that stuff happened to her."

"It's disconcerting to be referred to in the third person when it _should_ be in the second," she said thoughtfully, running to catch up. "Wouldn't Gray think so?"

"What?"

She went ahead and walked backwards, looking at me. "Nothing, you weren't listening. Oh, and about what you were saying - I'm probably really her then, aren't I?"

"What?" I stopped abruptly, startled out of my thoughts.

She stopped and tilted her head from side to side, considering it. "Well, I am who she was back then. She's changed now, but hey, you've still got me, haven't you? I'll bet you're ecstatic. I'll bet you can't wait to ask me things like the meaning of life and whatnot. Oh, and just so you know, I _won't_ say forty-two. It's been done already. What do you get when you multiply six by nine?"

"Fifty-four?"

"Close. You must really not like those burning tobacco sticks. So? Do you have any questions? What wisdom shall I impart?"

"Um…where are we going?"

"Of course," she nodded sagely, "One of the _tricky_ ones."

* * *

So, needless to say, I was insane. At first, I rationalized it away as a side effect of sleep deprivation, but I avidly kept a healthy schedule for a good month and she wouldn't stop following me around. It had been difficult to ignore her when I was talking to other people, but after I was at the receiving end of some very odd looks, I decided that I would only respond to her in private. 

She did, however, keep up a helpful running commentary on all my mistakes in life. And she _highly_ disapproved of Mary. She was rooting for Jack, and announced it regularly. I was either coming on too strong, or backing off too easily, or giving her too much space, or being clingy…and he was apparently the king of all things romantic.

Oh, isn't that just _adorable_, he's brought her earrings on her birthday. Oh, it's just _sweet_ how he never fails to stop in for a visit with her, isn't it? Shouldn't you just give up? You can't win against him. You can't win her heart.

It was getting me down, just a bit.

And my necklace was annoying me. It had been a birthday present, given me by Grandpa the year before, and it was a chain with links in a pattern of metals - as in, bronzed linked to silver linked to gold linked to mithril linked to adamantite linked to bronze again - with a silver hammer pendant.

Ever since my dream, though, the pendant on the chain had turned into a human likeness of the Harvest Goddess, just as I had seen her in my dream. It was disconcerting. I decided that I must have done _it_ in my sleep; 'it' being the metal-molding trick.

"Gray, don't fall asleep," Grandpa admonished me. I had been nodding off with the pendant in my hand.

On the other side of me, smiling happily, Suraia joked, "Quite a feat to fall asleep whilst sitting straight in these dead pews." She looked around at the interior of the Church, and shook her head sadly. "I don't like it here. It reminds me of someone."

I was going to ask who, but Grandpa would have thought I was a loony, and she saw my question in my expression anyway.

She waved her hand lazily, saying, "Your Harvest Goddess. We don't get along. She's all grave and introverted, and I'm such a delectable social butterfly. Irreconcilable differences, though I fear it to be true."

Just then, Carter began his sermon. "Welcome, all, to the annual Harvest Goddess Festival. Some of our more imaginative youngsters in town may call it the Pray-a-Thon, but none of those of us present do so, I'm sure. Now, everyone, please kneel and begin the Festival."

Trying to keep a straight face as he said 'Pray-a-Thon' with such distaste, I kneeled down and pretended to mouth some sort of supplication as I listened to Suraia's constant chatter.

She finally stopped laughing - she had felt no need to contain herself as I had - and walked all around the room. Usually I hated this festival, but maybe she could make the hours pass more quickly.

"Karen's intoxicated and I think she's just passed out," she announced decisively seconds later. "And Rick's trying to wake her quietly. Good luck to him, I say."

She kept walking, every step echoing only in my ears. "Popuri is fiddling with a tear at the hem of her dress, Cliff is outright snoring, and the lovely Mary is scribbling something or other in her novel thingy. Jack's sitting right next to her, but I can't see where his hand - oh, never mind, I found it. Jack, you sly dog! Mary seems pretty comfortable, if I do say so myself.

"Oh sorry, am I not helping you achieve a Zen state?" she said innocently when I thunked my head against the pew in front of me to get the mental image out of my head.

Half the people started and looked over at me, but I was back in normal prayer position, head bowed and hands clasped together.

Suraia walked back and sat down next me, saying affably, "You don't even believe in her. What're you doing here, anyway?"

I sent her a look that I hoped spoke volumes about appearances and the need to keep them up.

She apparently didn't receive it. Smiling, she looked around in boredom and said, "So, is this going to take very long?"

I nodded stiffly.

"And you'll have to be quiet and sit there?"

I rolled my eyes and tried to ocularly plead with her not to do anything.

"Now _this_ I like." She proceeded to give a well-thought-out thesis based on the prompt 'you are not suited for Mary because _blank_.'

* * *

Since it was a festival day, I was free from my familial bonds. I strolled down the street, smiling happily, set on visiting Mary at home - she wouldn't be at the Library. Thinking on Suraia's words, I turned to her and said, "Why do you think Mary and I are so ill-matched, anyway?" 

She was walking beside me, arm wrapped around mine, and I felt her shrug. "Oh, a lot of reasons; she's meant for another, she doesn't like you back but as a friend, mild jealousy. The usual things."

I wasn't listening, because I had just spotted Jack opening the door, laughing in good humor, for Mary - _my_ Mary - to enter her house. My feet had frozen in their tracks.

Suraia looked on without amusement. "You shouldn't. She'll just reject you, and then you'll be all depressed and it will be real drag for me."

"I shouldn't do what?" I growled, beginning to stalk forward again.

She shook her head and did not follow.

_All or nothing, _I thought._ All or nothing._

Pausing to knock on her door, I took a deep breath to calm down and smiled as she opened it wide. "Hi, Mary. Can I come in and hang out?"

She blushed and said, "Sure, Jack's here already…"

Jack appeared at her shoulder. "Actually, I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

She nodded and waved goodbye. Turning back, she nervously invited me in. When she wasn't looking, Jack waved to me - and I saw everything in that wave. Arrogance. Superiority.

Jerk.

I scowled in return, glanced at Suraia still standing down the street, and followed Mary. "Mary, I want to tell you something."

She was bustling around, trying to simultaneously prepare tea and clear the table of debris. "Oh?" she asked breathlessly, "What is it?"

All or nothing. "I like you."

She stopped and beamed at me, saying, "I like you, too, Gray." I choked and attempted to swallow my own tongue before she continued, "You're my best friend!"

Right in the gut. I smiled weakly and nodded, having difficultly breathing. Best friend, huh?

Apparently oblivious, she turned back and took up her tasks again. "You know, you and Jack are always coming by to visit, I hardly have time to feel lonely with my books anymore. Friends are wonderful, aren't they?"

"Oh," I gasped, trying to pay attention, "is Jack one of your best friends, too?" I hoped that he wasn't anything more to her than I was.

I hoped.

Please.

She put down her tray and stared at her shoes. She looked like it would be better to curl up and hide than to talk about it. "He's…not, really. I don't feel the same way around him as I do you. You're just so easy to talk to, Gray, but he's…"

I bit my knuckles with enough force to bring me to my senses and asked despondently, "You love him, don't you?"

"I-I think I do…" she blinked and giggled happily. "Gray, do you think that he might feel the same way?"

All or nothing, and I had gotten nothing.

I stumbled back to the door, ran into it before I could find the handle, forced myself to logic through the brain surgery of turning it, and fell to my knees at the bottom of the front steps.

Suraia was there, looking at me curiously. "I told you not to," she said bluntly.

I sighed and hung my head in despair. She didn't feel for me the same way I felt for her. Oh, gods, but it _hurt…_ My heart felt as though it was shrinking and loosing sensation.

But my mind was expanding until I could feel every piece of metal, every tiny fleck of mineral, around me and I was starting to panic because it didn't scare me as much as it should have. I couldn't breathe because my lungs were filled with metal and, ha, metal didn't need to breathe, so why should I?

"Gray, no, listen to me! You aren't metal, you need air, come on!"

Suraia was yelling about something. I couldn't understand it. Hmm, I liked being metal. If I was metal, I wouldn't be able to feel this hurt, right?

"Gray!"

Shut up, Suraia. Everything's alright now.

"Gray, listen to me, you'll die if you don't breathe _right now_!"

So? My eyelids fluttered uselessly as I tried to blink.

"I know it hurts, but try to…try to focus it on something else. Like the streetlamp right there, alright? Focus everything on that, and please please please remember how to breathe!"

My vision was hazy, but I could make out a vaguely streetlamp-ish silhouette only a few feet to my right. I could feel it in the back of my mind, just one metal shape out of many around me. Even as I singled it out, the shape became more defined, and my sense of it heightened. So, I focused all of my being into this one thing, and saw it distort and change shape.

Then, I think I heard Mary screaming, and blonde hair was cascading all around me, and then lips were pressed to mine and I was being forced to breathe in. Everything was mixing and blending together.

Mercifully, the world turned off.


	5. My Place

I woke up in my bed. Suraia was on top of me, snoring. I shifted my arm outside the blankets and shook her shoulder.

"Mmmnyeah?" she hummed, blinking at me. She slid off the blanket and felt along the bedside table for the glasses she had removed. Stifling a yawn, she peered down at me. "You look good, for a guy who nearly turned himself to stone."

"What?" I sat up, rubbing my head. It felt way too heavy. "What'd I do that for?"

"Because Mary loves Jack."

Oh, right.

My eyes widened. I touched my chest, over my heart. Nothing. No horrible compulsion to beat my head again a wall, just faint recognition. "Um, Suraia? Why didn't that hurt?"

She sat on my bed, her skirt drifting down around her and her knees crossed comfortably. "That would be something you need to see."

So, with nothing better to do, I stumbled around the room and got dressed. She kept talking the entire time, about new things she had noticed about the world in the one night I had been recovering, and what the flowers and plants were singing about today, and anything else she thought of.

It was soothing, even if most of it went over my head.

She led me outside the Inn and around the corner. As we came to Mary's house, a shrill noise crept into my head, and I clapped my hands over my ears.

"Goddess, what _is_ that?" I ground out. "It hurts!"

"I can't hear it. Only you can." Suraia bent down to look me in the eyes and put a finger under my chin. She turned my head to look at the streetlamp.

Or, where the streetlamp used to be. Now it was twisted in on itself, trying to get away, trying to rip itself apart - it was a painful thing.

And it was screaming. My eyes were watering against the constant sound.

"What happened to it?"

She went forward, stepping toe-heel like a ballerina, and touched one of the protruding curlicues. "I told you to put all of the hurt into it."

When she motioned for me to come closer, I did, and she put my hand under hers against the metal. It burned horribly, and I tried to snatch it away.

She held on. "Take it back, Gray. Look at how much pain you caused it, poor thing. You put a bit of your soul into it, and now you'll be ready for it."

I couldn't feel my hand. It had to be scarred by now. "I won't turn myself to stone again?"

She leaned her head against the metal and smiled. "No. Well, you might think you don't need to breathe anymore, but that worked out well for me the last time, didn't it?" She put a finger to her lips and mine, and then winked at me. "I say, go for it."

"I don't even know how!"

"Take a deep breath and calm down."

I closed my eyes and tried to block out the screaming.

"Now, can you find it in your mind? You're touching it, it should be prominent."

I shuffled through everything around me. There were ghosts of iron tools I had made, and I could see the Goddess pendant I wore glowing blue. That was odd. But I saw the lamp and grabbed for it.

"Wrap yourself around it. It is a part of you."

I brought it into my body and mind and soul and _Goddess it hurt so much_.

I cried out from the hurt and loneliness and blithe rejection and how could she have chosen Jack over me?

Suraia wrapped her arms around my middle and pressed ours cheeks together, both of them wet. "I know it hurts. I know. You'll feel better later," she murmured, over and over again. We were on the ground now, my hand still against the lamp. "Do you think you can put it back how it was?"

I focused on the shape of it in my head. Easy enough to push the willing metal back into it. Everything was better now.

I wasn't breathing again, but that was because I was trying to stop crying. Suraia laid me out on the ground and I didn't have the energy to hold onto the green cloth that brushed against my hand as she moved away. I just lay there, in a ball, gasping for air.

And then the door of Mary's house opened. "Gray!"

I opened my eyes. She was rushing over, but I saw a pretty, smart girl now, not an angel. She kneeled next to me and said, "I had a really strange dream. I thought you stopped breathing yesterday, and then the lamp was melting, sort of, and I went to the Clinic to get Doctor but then you had disappeared..." she trailed off and leaned closer. "Are you alright? You're crying..."

"I just fell down and got hurt." I pushed myself up into a sitting position and searched for a topic. Hadn't it always been hard to talk to her? "Um, have you seen Jack lately?"

She blushed. "Yeah. He came over really early this morning and," she swallowed, and held out her right hand, "we're engaged."

I smiled, for real. "Congratulations." I didn't react as I heard and felt Suraia sit down behind me and lean against me, back to back.

She touched my hand. "Don't you have a girl you like?"

"Well, let's think this through," I told her, closing my eyes. If I leaned my head back far enough, it hit Suraia's. "There's you and Jack, Rick and Karen, Cliff and Ann, Popuri and Kai whenever he's around, and Elli and Doctor. Who is there for me?"

Suraia said, "There's this really neat chick. I hear she's pretty."

I blinked.

"Oh, but there's certainly someone in the city where you used to live?" Mary asked, frowning.

"I'm never going back there," I reminded. I heard Suraia laugh. Mary looked sad. I reassured her, "Don't worry. I'm sure I'll find my place."

She smiled and stood. "I should get back to the Library now. I'll see you around, Gray."

I waved good-bye to her as Suraia said, "No, she won't, sweet thing that she is."

* * *

"Why did you drag me up to the Spring?" I sighed. I was very tired, even though I had woken up only an hour before. "Are we waiting for the Harvest Goddess?" 

"Something like that."

From the shore, I watched as she danced and skipped along the rocks lining the shallow pool. I closed my eyes and lay back in the grass, feeling the flecks of minerals in the soil and the plants. And, of course, the Spring Mine was a well of iron and bronze and sliver talking to each other and me. They spoke very slowly, but I could _feel_ what they meant.

Suraia spread herself out on the grass beside me. She turned on her side and laid her head on my shoulder, and I barely even noticed it. She said, "Your eyes changed color when we came here."

"What do you mean?"

"I watched for it. They're kind of goldish-bronze." I reached my hand up to touch my eyelid, wishing for a mirror. It didn't occur to me to disbelieve her.

"My eyes changed color, too, when I came here, once I was ready. Grey turned to blue. Then my hair, too."

I breathed in and out, watching her head rise and fall with me. Her words washed over me like water from the Spring.

In her smooth, soothing voice, she said, "When I wrote the Gospel, I was lost. I didn't know what was happening to me."

The grass grew five inches in a second, three feet in a minute. Suraia's doing. Now, I couldn't see anything but her.

"But I could sense that someone else would be coming. I could feel his presence as though he were already with me. I knew that he would understand what it's like to keep the ability to grow enough crops to feed the world in a single season a _secret_ and how much it hurts."

I remembered how Grandpa had looked at me when I had squeezed the block of mithril. I could still hear Mary talking about her 'horrible dream'.

This was me. The metal was me, too. And if they were going to be afraid of the metal...

I said, "Why can I do all these magic things?"

She hummed and rubbed her cheek against me. "Because you and I are alike. Just like my shrine is the Spring, yours will be the Mine."

I stopped breathing. She was looking at me, worried about how I would take this.

"You're the Harvest Goddess."

"Yes."

"And I'm some kind of God of the Mine."

"Yup."

I was quiet for a long time. She set her chin on my shoulder, watching me.

There weren't very many things left on my list of impossible things. Metal sat up and begged for me, after all. But to be a God...

"Why me?"

"Because this is your place."

I was quiet again. Then I said, "Why did you say that you don't like the Harvest Goddess?"

"I'm the human me. She's the Goddess me. It gets complicated, usually. If you want them to keep believing without asking for a miracle at every turn, you can't just go around helping everyone. I wish that I could, and she understands that she can't."

"That _does_ sound complicated," I agreed sarcastically.

She stuck her tongue out at me, digging her chin into my shoulder.

"And you've been waiting all this time."

"Just for you. I think it was worth it."

I rubbed my hand over my face. "This is really it? This is what I've been waiting for?"

"I guess. How should I know?" She smiled at me, reached her hand up, and mussed my hair.

I put my hand on her shoulder and rolled on top of her. "It's not so bad." I leaned down and kissed her, and everything was good.

* * *

I'm so sorry it took so long for an update! I got sidetracked! But, now, this isn't the end. There's an epilogue. 


	6. The Gospel of Gray

I didn't go back to Mineral Town after that.

Suraia and I talked about almost everything. What was going to happen, when to expect a following, how I was going to physically change. After one week, my skin turned goldish-bronze, like she said my eyes had. And my hair was dark brown. I didn't feel very much changed, though.

Watching Mary and Jack be married in Suraia's Church, I knew that I had.

I just wanted to protect her. Nothing more.

Together, Suraia and I kept her children safe, and her children's children. Little things, like turning a sweet little girl with glasses away from the ocean where she wouldn't be able to swim.

Years passed. I noticed a divergence between my self and the source of my power. Suraia told me it was normal. I started to think of them as 'Gray' and the 'God of Spring Mine'.

After a century, enough miners and farmers and passers-by had caught a glimpse of me to have there be a rumor. I felt the first prayer like sunlight in winter. I was needed, suddenly. I knew my place.

After a very, very long time, I knew what 'Gray' had to do. I wrote my Gospel.

Side by side, in the attic of the Library, if the right person is looking, there will be two tomes telling of magical things. Together, Suraia and I are waiting for that right person.

Until then, I am content. I listen to the metal and it says that this is where I belong, with the woman I love.


End file.
